Say it like YOU mean it- a guide for “woke” white ladies.

A few months ago, my friend Emilia reached out to me online to ask my opinion about some articles on Digital Blackface. Teen Vogue’s Lauren Michelle Jackson wrote a great explainer piece you should check out. She asks the important question:

“ Reaction GIFs are mostly frivolous and fun. But when black people are the go-to choice for nonblack users to act out their most hyperbolic emotions, do reaction GIFs become “digital blackface”?”

And this is part of the question Emilia and I were getting into. For us, as white women primarily in community with Black people and other People of Color, what if gifs of women of color feel more authentic to what we’re trying to express? This made me wonder how authentic my own identity is. How much is the easy practice of Digital Blackface a symptom of a bigger issue of over familiarity with Black culture? The conversation helped me create some ground rules for myself and I thought I would share those with other white ladies who want to try to avoid Digital Blackface and think about how we can be sassy without being appropriative or reinforcing stereotypes of Black or other Women of Color. Also, Sa’iyda Shabazz writes for Scary Mommy with some great “try this not that” recommendations for some commonly used gifs.

Basically the rules are this- are you posting a reaction to something? Then if you’re a white lady, don’t use a gif with a person of color. Are you celebrating a person of color? Maybe you’re watching a Cavs game and you want to post a Lebron gif or maybe you just read Choma Nnadi’s amazing Rihanna profile in Vogue and you want to share her glow with something like:

That’s fine, in my rulebook (but to be clear, I only speak for myself). As for reactions, there’s a couple of reasons I don’t think it’s appropriate for us white ladies, even “woke” white ladies (especially?) to use gifs of any People of Color.

1. Not everyone on the internet knows us. As a white woman married to a Black man and in community with lots of Black and Brown loved ones, I have made some serious missteps in assuming that gives me a pass to have certain familiarity with folks of color who don’t know me. This is important to understand- white people, we need to earn the trust of every person of color in our lives, basically over and over again. Because everything in the world (and too often, in the way we fail in our own actions) tells them they should not (Ijeoma Oluo has a great piece about this). The internet is a big place. No one has to assume you don’t mean ill intent using an over the top snapping head roll gif.
2. Using a Black or other Person of Color’s reaction as a stand in for your feelings can dangerously reinforce stereotypes about People of Color. It also allows us to play in their culture without thinking about how we are taking from it without return, or how the culture was created to begin with. I can remember when I was in college, more affluent white students ironically quoting rap lyrics that they thought sounded hard in their AIM away messages (yes I am dating myself, I know) or yelling out Dave Chapelle catch phrases at parties. Now, “no two days are alike, except the first and fifteenth pretty much” might have resonance for me as a white kid who grew up on welfare, but that brings us back to the first of my two points. People who don’t know me don’t need to assume I might get it.

Not to worry

Ok, so all that said, I’ve got a starter package of white lady angst and joy to help you express all of your feelings about the patriarchy and other nonsense on the social medias. Here are some of my favorites, (some are a little crass) enjoy:

And of course no one can forget Bernadine’s raging car fire from Waiting to Exhale, but white ladies don’t fret, we have our own firestarter- lest we forget the mother of dragons.

So there you have it. And if none of these work, just type the feeling you’re looking for into the search bar and keep scrolling. I promise you’ll find something that works. White women can be a force (for good) to reckon with too. If we don’t believe that, Digital Blackface is just another way we’re asking Black women and other women of color to do the heavy lifting for us.